These Memoirs Won’t Dictate Themselves

“Has it ever occured to you that all life is memory, so fast you can hardly catch it?” -Sissy Goforth

In celebration of finishing my book (a year late and eight thousand miles from where I started), I want to share some glamorous images of another, far more interesting woman writing her memoir. I have a thing for Hollywood biographies…I’ll admit it. Ever since I happened upon Hedy Lamar’s Ecstasy and Me I’ve been a sucker for all things Hollywood Babylon. So, while Liz Taylor had more biographical information written about her than you could throw a 33.19 carat diamond ring at, I found it amusing that she writes her memoirs while wearing an abaya (and sometimes a hideous froth of white lace) in Joseph Losey’s (much maligned) Tennessee Williams adaptation BOOM!

Myself I favored ruined-in-the-wash silver leggings and an old X Ray Spex tshirt…but hey, no one’s filming me in my billion dollar island home so I can afford to be comfortable while I write. Right?

Sissy Goforth (that’s Lizzy) is the world’s richest woman keeps an international menagerie of servants and animals and modern art like some female version of Xanadu. Anyway, in this fascinatingly shot, beautifully staged, absurdly peopled and yet strangely boring film, she uses a dictaphone and injections of Vitamin B-12 to get her book done (trade secrets).

If you get your paws on this movie (or any Losey) and you like the sets of films such as In Like Flint, Modesty Blaize and Dr. No – watch it! What I wanted to bring to your attention was that she does it all in some to-rival Gaga costumes and then, best of all: while wearing this Abaya and shala. Liz would later go to pre-revolutionary Iran and I’ll venture it’s not beyond reason that some of the costumes may have been ‘star’s own’. See pics of Liz in Iran here they are pretty amazing. And enjoy some screenshots from BOOM! below. x